Letter to the editor

It's no great secret that a very small percentage of Iraqi citizens, displaced by war, have been allowed to immigrate to this country. Americans are understandably leery of large numbers of Muslims coming to our shores, but is this fair in view of the fact that we had a lot to do with their displacement in the first place? When you stop to think about it, what better emissaries can there be than people who have lived under the repressive regime of Saddam Hussein, followed by the horrible suicidal attacks of radical terrorists? First you have to understand that all Muslims are not terrorists and those that are allowed to come here can bring with them the lessons learned the hard way of what it's like to live in terror, not knowing from one day to the next who in their families will live or die. Small countries like Sweden and Denmark have opened their hearts to these refugees to a far greater degree than we have and I think for that, we should be ashamed. After all, we're the ones with the statue in our New York harbor that welcomes the "wretched and the poor" to our shores. They don't come any more wretched than these poor souls. I'm not saying open up the flood gates and let them pour in, but in the name of all that's decent and just, surely we can do a little better. Something righteous needs to emerge from this war or we may as well quit telling ourselves how great we really are.

George Morin
Auburn, Ga.